


Build Me Up, Buttercup

by Donotquestionme



Series: Strange Magic Series [3]
Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: F/M, butterfly bog, potionless mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 03:12:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5568637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donotquestionme/pseuds/Donotquestionme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bog tries to help Marianne reclaim a piece of past that she thought Roland ruined forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Build Me Up, Buttercup

**Author's Note:**

> Someone a while ago, I can’t remember who, brought up a really good point. They mentioned that they wished that the last song hadn’t been a wild rock song like ‘Wild Thing’, because it implied that everything about Marianne being ‘cutesy’ before was inherently wrong and that there was and should be no part of that left in her and they didn’t really agree with that message.
> 
> Now, I love the ending song. I feel it fits their relationship much better than something like “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You”, but it got me thinking about how drastic Marianne’s change was in “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and how much she seems to dislike everything about how she used to be, even things that seemed to not be related to Roland.  
> That inspired this fic.

"Ooh! Ooh! Boggy, do you think Sunny would like these ones better or these?"

Dawn flew excitedly through a field of wildflowers, pointing out various types as they passed. Bog was not far behind, struggling to keep up with the energetic fairy.

"I don't know anything about your boyfriend." He said. "Or about flowers for that matter. I fail to see why I'm even here."

"Oh don't be grouchy." Dawn scolded, playfully. She landed on an open patch of ground. "I need to gather some things for Sunny's birthday present and Marianne doesn't like me going around by myself because apparently I'm 'danger prone'."

Bog made an affirmative noise at that.

"And she's distracting Sunny, so that leaves you!" Dawn concluded.

Bog grumbled.

"Are you just fussing because you're still mad at Sunny for stealing the love potion?" Dawn said, accusatively.

Bog said nothing.

"Boooooog. That was foreeeever ago!" Dawn moaned.

"It's not just that he stole the potion." Bog huffed. "He was going to give it to that lout, Roland. He was going to use it on you!"

"Believe me, Bog.” Dawn said. "We've talked about that.  A _lot._ What Sunny did and what he tried to do was wrong, and he knows that. He feels really bad about it and is always trying to make amends, but sometimes people just make mistakes."

Bog's face softened at the last sentence.

"Yes," he said. "I suppose they do."

"Sooooo..." Dawn said, holding up petals from two different flowers. "Which of these do you like better?"

"Hmm...Let me see the yellow one." He requested.

Dawn handed the petal to him and he examined it.

It was a vibrant yellow that seemed to reflect yellow onto everything around it. The sun was yellow, so it would be appropriate for a man named "Sunny", wouldn't it?

He grimaced. Gods he was bad at this. He rubbed the petal between his thumb and forefinger, crushing it slightly.

"Wait...What kind of flower is this?" he asked.

"A buttercup." Dawn explained.

Bog yelped and dropped the petal as if it had bitten him.

"Why would you _hand me that_?!" he cried. "Why were _you holding that_?!"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Dawn asked, seeming completely oblivious to Bog's distress.

"Buttercups are extremely poisonous!" Bog exclaimed. "Just holding one can burn the skin!"

"Pffft. That's not true." Dawn laughed. "Fairies hold them all the time. We even eat them!"

" _Eat_ them?!" Bog cried. "What on Earth are you made of? Goblins can't even touch the stuff."

"You did." Dawn noted.

Bog immediately looked to his hand, which was lightly coated with oil from crushing the petal. He yelped again and immediately wiped his hand against the ground to get it off.

He inspected his hand for any wounding. Strangely, it hadn't seem to burn him at all. He'd seen other goblins' skin begin to blister within moments of contact with the stuff.

Dawn picked up the petal and smiled.

"These are Marianne's favorite!" She said, then paused, her face falling. "Oh. Or...they _were_."

"What do you mean 'they were'?" Bog asked, standing up again.

"She used to love buttercups." Dawn explained, looking sad. "So Roland would always get them for her for every one of their anniversaries. He used to call her his 'buttercup'. Now she can't _stand_ them. There's a lot of stuff like that now."

She sighed.

"Like what?" Bog asked.

"Well, she used to love dresses." Dawn continued. "And dancing, and laughing, and hugging."

"Hugging?" Bog said, incredulously. "Marianne?"

Dawn chuckled sadly. "Yeah, she used to be more huggy than _me,_ if you can believe it. Things were just different back then."

Bog was silent, unsure of what to say. He didn't meet Marianne until long after she'd parted with Roland. He never knew what she was like before.

"Don't get me wrong," Dawn said. "I like Marianne how she is now. She's more _her_ this way."

"More 'her'?" Bog asked.

"I don't really know how to explain it." Dawn said. "I feel like, she used to be super concerned with what people thought of her. Of what people expected her to be. Roland really fed into that I guess. Telling her what was and wasn't 'appropriate for a princess'." She mimicked Roland's drawl.

"After he...after they broke up, she just kinda stopped caring about what other people wanted her to be.” Dawn explained. "She started doing the things she wanted to do and learning the things she wanted to learn but..."

"...but?"

"But...I sometimes don't know how much of that is her being more herself...or her just trying not to be the girl who fell in love with Roland. I just hate to think that he took the things she loved and made them bad or made her feel like they're bad, I guess."

Bog furrowed his brows and thought for a moment.

"Dawn...when you're done with this, do you think you could help me with something?"

 --

"Bog this is silly. Let me open my eyes." Marianne groused, reaching up to remove her blindfold.

Bog batted away her hand.

"I told you, it's a surprise." he said. "Eyes stay closed."

Bog led Marianne down the hall of the fairy castle by the hand.

"How much of a surprise could it be if it's in my own castle?" Marianne retorted.

"I guess you'll find out." Bog said.

"Hmph."

"Oh stop your whining, we're almost there."

Marianne didn't bother to tell him that, even with the blindfold on, she knew exactly where she was. She knew these halls backwards and forwards and it was a simple matter of remembering which turns they'd made for her to discern her location

She heard him open the door to what she knew to be Dawn's sewing room. Did Dawn have something to do with this?

"Ok..." Bog said, suddenly sounding apprehensive. "You can open your eyes."

Marianne removed her blindfold, honestly curious about whatever it was that he'd concocted.

As she lay eyes on the object in front of her, however, she felt as if stomach had turned to lead.

_Buttercups._

On a dress form in front of her was a beautifully crafted dress obviously made from the foul weeds.

She clenched her fist so hard, her knuckles turned white.  Her mind was filled with memories she'd meant to push away. Of her, in her naivety and stupidity, cherishing all of Roland's stupid gifts, his infantizing nicknames, his pitiful and transparent attempts to act like he knew or cared about her at all. It was probably the only thing about her he'd bothered to remember.

"Marianne...?" Bog said, softly and cautiously.

Marianne bit her lip and looked at the floor, trying to fight the flush rising to her face.

"It's not your fault, Bog." she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "You couldn't have known that--"

"I know."

Marianne blinked and looked up at him.

"...what?" she whispered.

"I know about these." Bog said, gesturing lightly to the dress. "About what they were to you...and to him."

Marianne couldn't believe her ears. Bog had known? He'd done this on purpose?

Her face twisted into one of disgust and rage.

"Then....then _why_ would you give me this?!" She demanded, trying to use anger to mask her feelings of hurt and betrayal, but failing to fight back the tears threatening to well in her eyes.

"Because..." Bog began, looking down at his hands. He swallowed thickly, clearly nervous about whatever he was about it say, then looked her in the eye. "Because they're still you're favorite flower." he said, voice shaky but resolute.

Marianne blinked again, baffled.

"What are you _kidding?!"_ she exclaimed. "I can't _stand_ these things!"

She sneered at the offending garment.

"Just look at them!" She said, scathingly. "They're so bright and ostentatious and flimsy and flighty and _cutesy._ They're _everything_ that was wrong with Roland, with--" she cut short.

"With... _you_?" Bog supplied, voice soft and cautious.

"With...with my and Roland's _relationship!"_ She corrected, hastily.

Bog said nothing. He looked at her with a sorrowful incredulousness.

Marianne grit her teeth.

"Fine!" She relented. "And with me, ok?"

"But...there's nothing wrong with you Marianne. There never was." Bog said, shaking his head.

Marianne scoffed. "You wouldn't say that if you knew me back then." she said, bitterly.” I was an air-headed, prissy princess with my head in the clouds. I never looked out for anyone, even myself. I was never aware of anything around me. Stupid and vain and _naive."_ She practically hissed the last word.

"I didn't know you then, but I know you _now."_ Bog said. "And well enough to know that you take everything onto yourself. You blame yourself for things you can't control because you feel you should have seen them coming but you couldn't."

He took a deep breath, and looked her in the eye, intensely.

"Nothing that Roland did was your fault." he said.

"You think I don't know that?" Marianne snapped. "It's not _my_ fault that Roland is a power hungry weasel! I never _asked_ for him to lie to me!"

She balled her fists and yelled. "I never asked for him to cheat on me the _day of my wedding!"_

Bog was taken aback.

"It was your..." He whispered, horrified. "You never told me it was your wedding day."

Marianne winced, embarrassed at her slip up. She'd never told _anyone_ that.

"Well now you know, then." She said. "I was _so happy_ to be marrying that...that _slime_ that I couldn't even wait for the alter. I went to find him and sure as hell found him. Found him fooling around with some other woman!"

Marianne's voice was growing thick and tears threatened at her eyes.

"I didn't even _confront_ him!" She cried. "I just _ran away_ and cried and...and..."

She choked out a sob.

"AND I DIDN'T SEE IT COMING!" she screamed.

"I never even figured it out on my own!" She sobbed. "If he hadn't been so _bold_ , so _careless,_ I would have _never_ found out! I didn't know HOW could I not have known?! I'm such an _idiot!_ "

She pressed her palms against her eyes and dug her nails into her forehead. She hadn't meant to cry. She'd told herself she wouldn't cry anymore. Not about him. Never another tear for him.

"That's the reason you hate these so much, isn't it?" Bog asked. "Not because they remind you of him. But because they remind you of _you._ Of the person you were. The person who let Roland deceive them. But you didn't _let_ him do anything. It wasn't your fault. Trusting him may have been a mistake, but that doesn't mean that who you were was wrong or bad."

Marianne took her hands away from her eyes to look at Bog, his eyes, too, beginning to glisten.

"You..." he said in wonder, a small, sad smile playing at his lips. “Are the most...incredible person I've ever met. An' to think that you could see yourself, to think that you were ever anything but the most brilliant, competent, amazing person...I..."

He drew a shaky breath.

"I know what it's like...to want to be the opposite of who you were. To want to destroy every part of yourself that led you to feeling something, or doing something." He said, an old shame written across his face. "And eventually you lose the line between what was _you_ and what was your mistake."

"But you can't let that own you." He continued. "To let _him_ own you. Even a piece of you. Because he doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve to take your flowers or your songs or your joy. _Nothing_."

He sighed, closing his eyes.

"I wish...I wish I could give those things back to you." he said, sadly. "To unspoil the things he's spoiled. But I can't. I can't tell you who you are. Only you can. I can have the dress disposed of.  I just...I hate to think he still has any hand in what you think you should be."

Marianne looked over the garment once more. She imagined Dawn making it, putting love into every detail. She'd used to wear the dresses the Dawn made her all the time. They would pick out colors together and talk for hours as Dawn sewed, pausing every once in a while for Marianne to try it on. She'd been her living dress form back then.

They never talked like that anymore.

She tried to think back on her younger self. Any thoughts of who she used to be brought up such feelings of anger and embarrassment that she never really stopped to think about who she had been, beyond the 'naive princess who fell for Roland'.  The girl who wanted to please everyone, to be perfect, to be _normal._

It had been so freeing to cast off those shackles of expectation. She'd hardened herself so that no judgmental eyes could bore into her thick skin. She thought she'd freed herself from Roland's judgements and expectations as well.

Could it really be that she'd just inverted them? Had she really focused on who _she_ wanted to be? Or had she just tried to become everything he _didn't?_

She was happier now, undoubtedly, though not everyone might understand it but, for the first time in a long time, she thought of her past with just the slightest hint of fondness.

"Wait." she said. "You...you don't have to get rid of it."

Bog looked to her. "You're sure?" he asked, carefully.

"I don't know if I could ever wear it." Marianne said, looking at the floor, uncomfortably. "But...I need to think about it. About a number of things."

Suddenly, she felt arms surround her, holding her firmly but tenderly.

"Thank you." Bog breathed.

Marianne leaned her head against his chest, feeling drained from her outbursts.

"Do you feel that way, then?" She asked. She didn't need to clarify what she meant.

"Yes.' Bog answered, resting his head against the top of hers. "But my circumstances were different. I never had anyone to blame but myself. I blamed love, I blamed Plum, but I always knew, at my core, that it was no one's fault but my own. Everything I did came from a place of self-loathing, and I knew it."

"When did you stop feeling that way?"

"To be honest, never." Bog admitted. "That's why I couldn't stand the idea of you doing the same thing I did. I can't bear to think that you see yourself...the way I see _my_ self."

"Do you...do you hate yourself?" Marianne asked, pulling away so she could look him in the eye. "Even now?"

Bog said nothing.

"Bog--" Marianne began, voice pained.

"Not so much as I have." Bog interjected. "It's been there a long time, and will be there a long time yet, but it's lessened."

His shoulders hunched and he smiled sheepishly.

"I...I find it hard to dislike things too greatly that you seem... _fond_ of." He said. 

Marianne smiled at how his voice still wavered when he suggested that she liked him. Always just the tiniest bit unsure. Never taking what they had for granted.

"It sounds like we both have things we need to think about." She said.

"Aye." Bog agreed with a soft smile. "We do."

**Author's Note:**

> I felt weird having a dress made of yellow flower petals in my fic when suzie-guru had one in her fic and I didn’t want to seem like I was copying her, but it just made sense with Roland’s nickname for her. Plus, buttercups being poisonous was just too perfect. 
> 
> To be clear about that, buttercups are poisonous to a lot of things, EXCLUDING butterflies and moths and stuff that eat them. Fairies are like butterflies and insects, in a way, so I figured they could handle and eat them, even though they’re also very human and humans cannot (seriously buttercups can irritate your skin just by touching them a lot these are the things you learn while writing fanfics). Goblins seem based on things like frogs and other amphibians, which buttercups would be poisonous to and the idea of goblins being deathly afraid of a pretty flower that fairies wear and eat was funny to me. 
> 
> Didn’t seem to burn Bog at all though, how weird? 
> 
> Obvious song reference in title is obvious.
> 
> Not super happy with how this came out. Everyone seemed out of character. Bog is definitely too emotionally aware. If that makes sense...


End file.
